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सुपार्श्वनाथ
Suparshvanatha
The seventh Tirthankara.
The seventh Tirthankara, born at Varanasi — the same city as Parshvanatha, sixteen Tirthankaras later, which is why the city carries two Jain birth sites and why both traditions have long maintained temples there.
The name means fine-flanked, and tradition relates that his mother, who had been unwell, was restored during the pregnancy. As with several of the early Tirthankaras, the name and the story explaining it travel together and cannot now be separated.
His emblem is given as the swastika — in its ancient Indian sense, long predating and unrelated to twentieth-century European use. In Jain iconography the four arms are read as the four states of existence a soul may be born into, and the figure appears constantly in ordinary temple practice.
On the emblem. The svastika here is the ancient Indian auspicious sign, denoting the four states of existence; it long predates and is unrelated to twentieth-century European use.
This figure is known from tradition; there is no independent historical evidence. That is a statement about the record, not about the tradition.
Written for Jain Times. Corrections are welcome — see sources and licences.